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The UN Day for the Prevention of the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict is Nov. 6 and is the International Day of Action in the campaign to ban depleted uranium (DU) weapons which are anti-tank shells. However, the impact of a fired shell with a tank puts a cloud of radioactive and chemically toxic DU oxide particles in the air that can be inhaled or ingested. As its half-life - DU is radioactive - is over 4 million years - once in the environment, it is here to stay. DU anti-tank shells have been used by the U.S. and the U.K. since 1991. During the First Gulf War in 1991, 320 tons of DU was dumped on Iraq, Kuwait and a little on Saudi Arabia. They have been used in the Balkans Wars of the 1990s and also in Iraq in 2003 where they were used in urban areas. Reports from Iraq indicate increased rates of cancer, especially in children, and increased rates of birth defects that may be due to DU exposure. DU has been found to cause mutations in humans and laboratory animals and cancers including leukemia in laboratory rodents.

The UN Day for the Prevention of the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict is Nov. 6 and is the International Day of Action in the campaign to ban depleted uranium (DU) weapons which are anti-tank shells. However, the impact of a fired shell with a tank puts a cloud of radioactive and chemically toxic DU oxide particles in the air that can be inhaled or ingested. As its half-life - DU is radioactive - is over 4 million years - once in the environment, it is here to stay. DU anti-tank shells have been used by the U.S. and the U.K. since 1991. During the First Gulf War in 1991, 320 tons of DU was dumped on Iraq, Kuwait and a little on Saudi Arabia. They have been used in the Balkans Wars of the 1990s and also in Iraq in 2003 where they were used in urban areas. Reports from Iraq indicate increased rates of cancer, especially in children, and increased rates of birth defects that may be due to DU exposure. DU has been found to cause mutations in humans and laboratory animals and cancers including leukemia in laboratory rodents.

Haunted by the goblins of the cold war, a Boise-based group is obsessed with a uranium enrichment plant GargoyleA relic with knee-jerk, anti-nuclear reflexes from the cold war has energized itself to oppose Areva's planned $2.4 billion "Eagle Rock" uranium enrichment plant in Idaho. The Boise-based Snake River Alliance (SRA) has a war chest of $300,000 from the Bullit and the Edwards Mother Earth foundations and Patagonia outdoor clothing. With a staff of five and a claim of 1,000 members, it is planning to mount a major campaign to drive Areva out of Idaho. The French nuclear energy firm announced plans in May 2008 to build a $2.4 billion uranium enrichment plant in eastern Idaho 18 miles west of Idaho Falls, ID. Areva chose the site after a yearlong nationwide search, with intense competition among five finalist sites, and only after the Idaho legislature offered tax incentives to sweeten the winning deal. Idaho Falls is one of the nation's most pro-nuclear cities with a sustained track record of standing up for Areva's project.

Haunted by the goblins of the cold war, a Boise-based group is obsessed with a uranium enrichment plant GargoyleA relic with knee-jerk, anti-nuclear reflexes from the cold war has energized itself to oppose Areva's planned $2.4 billion "Eagle Rock" uranium enrichment plant in Idaho. The Boise-based Snake River Alliance (SRA) has a war chest of $300,000 from the Bullit and the Edwards Mother Earth foundations and Patagonia outdoor clothing. With a staff of five and a claim of 1,000 members, it is planning to mount a major campaign to drive Areva out of Idaho. The French nuclear energy firm announced plans in May 2008 to build a $2.4 billion uranium enrichment plant in eastern Idaho 18 miles west of Idaho Falls, ID. Areva chose the site after a yearlong nationwide search, with intense competition among five finalist sites, and only after the Idaho legislature offered tax incentives to sweeten the winning deal. Idaho Falls is one of the nation's most pro-nuclear cities with a sustained track record of standing up for Areva's project.

Yuki Tanaka and Richard Falk Yuki Tanaka's article is followed by a companion article by Richard Falk The War Crimes Trials and the Issue of Indiscriminate Bombing On May 14, 1946, ten days after the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), Captain George Furness, a member of the defense counsel, cast serious doubt on the fairness of the Tribunal conducted by the victorious nations in World War II: 'We say that regardless of the known integrity of the individual Members of this Tribunal they cannot, under the circumstances of their appointment, be impartial; that under such circumstances this trial, both in the present day and history, will never be free from substantial doubt as to its legality, fairness, and impartiality.'1

Yuki Tanaka and Richard Falk Yuki Tanaka's article is followed by a companion article by Richard Falk The War Crimes Trials and the Issue of Indiscriminate Bombing On May 14, 1946, ten days after the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), Captain George Furness, a member of the defense counsel, cast serious doubt on the fairness of the Tribunal conducted by the victorious nations in World War II: 'We say that regardless of the known integrity of the individual Members of this Tribunal they cannot, under the circumstances of their appointment, be impartial; that under such circumstances this trial, both in the present day and history, will never be free from substantial doubt as to its legality, fairness, and impartiality.'1

An inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war kicked off Tuesday with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster as early as 2001 - long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion. Critics hope the hearings, which will call ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and are billed as the most sweeping inquiry into the conflict, will expose alleged deception in the buildup to fighting. However, they won't establish criminal or civil liability. As the inquiry began, a small group of anti-war protesters gathered near Parliament. Three wore face masks of George Bush, Blair and Prime Minister Gordon Brown - their hands and faces covered in fake blood. "Five years we've waited for this, and finally we're getting somewhere," said Pauline Graham, 70, who traveled from the Scottish city of Glasgow to see the hearings. Her grandson Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2004.

An inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war kicked off Tuesday with top government advisers testifying that some Bush administration officials were calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster as early as 2001 - long before sanctions were exhausted and two years before the U.S.-led invasion. Critics hope the hearings, which will call ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair and are billed as the most sweeping inquiry into the conflict, will expose alleged deception in the buildup to fighting. However, they won't establish criminal or civil liability. As the inquiry began, a small group of anti-war protesters gathered near Parliament. Three wore face masks of George Bush, Blair and Prime Minister Gordon Brown - their hands and faces covered in fake blood. "Five years we've waited for this, and finally we're getting somewhere," said Pauline Graham, 70, who traveled from the Scottish city of Glasgow to see the hearings. Her grandson Gordon Gentle, 19, was killed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra in 2004.

"The world's anti-war activists, including parliamentarians, civil society groups and diplomats, have succeeded in creating international treaties to ban a wide array of deadly weapons: anti-personnel landmines, blinding laser weapons, cluster munitions, dum-dum bullets and chemical and biological weapons. But "the most iniquitous weapon of all" - the nuclear weapon - has continued to escape a treaty aimed at eliminating its use, spread and production. Asked why a proposed nuclear weapons convention (NWC) has failed to get off the ground, Alyn Ware, global coordinator for Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), told IPS: "The nuclear weapon is both a military and a political weapon." "It projects power," he said, singling out the world's five most powerful, and by definition, permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - who are also the five declared nuclear powers. "

A chilling reminder of the Cold War with Russia is being removed from the majority of homes in a west Highland village. At the height of the tension, the Royal Navy established a berth for nuclear submarines in Broadford Bay, Skye, and therefore had to consider the consequences to the population should there have been any incident causing a radioactive leak into the local environment. One of the precautions taken was to issue everyone living within 1.25 miles of the berth with anti-radiation potassium iodate tablets (Pits) that would help prevent contamination of the thyroid gland.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday U.S. plans for a missile defense system were the main obstacle to reaching a new deal on reducing Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons. World | Russia The two largest nuclear powers say they are close to agreeing on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), although U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have yet to clinch a deal. Asked by a reporter what the biggest problem was in the talks, Putin said: "What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday U.S. plans for a missile defense system were the main obstacle to reaching a new deal on reducing Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons. World | Russia The two largest nuclear powers say they are close to agreeing on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), although U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have yet to clinch a deal. Asked by a reporter what the biggest problem was in the talks, Putin said: "What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one."

The Korean War, tension between the United States and Soviet Union and anti-communist suspicion were all in the news during early 1951. On Friday, Feb. 2, 1951, Schenectady residents had something else to worry about - radioactive snowmen. A batch of winter snowflakes that had fallen in Rochester in January had registered on the atomic scale. Experts blamed bomb tests in New Mexico - and drifting after-effects - for the souped-up snow. Scientists said kids would not have to exchange snowsuits for more protective gear; the level of radioactivity was too low to bother humans.

Prime Minister John Key will use his first speech to the United Nations to underscore his Government's commitment to a nuclear-free New Zealand. In the first speech by a National prime minister to the UN General Assembly in nearly 15 years, Key will reaffirm New Zealand's anti-nuclear credentials and emphasise its determination to keep an independent foreign policy. It is significant that he is making the speech while on his first official visit to the United States, which has been a fault line in foreign policy between Labour and National for most of the past two decades. The issue flared again when Labour opposed the Iraq war while National was still in Opposition. But Key drew a line in the sand before the last election by promising his commitment to a nuclear-free New Zealand and an independent foreign policy. He will use his speech to the General Assembly on Saturday to stress the new bipartisan approach.

A Japanese artist and a Hiroshima citizens group plan to publish a picture book in late July to explain in an easy-to-understand manner a protocol proposed by an international group of mayors calling for nuclear elimination, local media reported. Seitaro Kuroda, a 70-year-old artist, said he proposed publishing such a book that can be read easily by children after perusing the protocol and thinking that it contained good elements but was "rigid with too many Chinese characters," Kyodo News reported. The book will include anti-nuclear peace messages from students in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities on which the U.S. military dropped atomic bombs during World War II. The citizens group will self-publish the 64-page book, printing about 5,000 copies to be sold for 500 yen each.

Former world leaders and arms-control negotiators joined entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and the queen of Jordan Tuesday to launch a project aimed at eliminating the world's nuclear weapons over the next 25 years. The group wants to reach the impossible-sounding goal by reviving nuclear disarmament efforts that have lagged since the end of the Cold War. It is proposing deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, a worldwide verification and enforcement system and phased reduction leading to elimination of all stockpiles.

Pop Quiz: what source of energy has received the most government subsidies since World War II, has a by-product that has remained dangerous for thousands of years, and is a major component of McCain's energy proposal? If you said "oil," you answered incorrectly. What I'm talking about is nuclear energy - 1950's energy of the future. Back then, it was thought that nuclear energy would be the radioactive wave that would carry the world into the atomic age, supplying nearly all of the world's electricity and a significant portion of its commercial energy. Obviously, nuclear energy has failed to live up to this expectation.

"Chancellor Angela Merkel may have to put plans to extend the life of Germany's nuclear-power plants on ice as falling poll ratings diminish her ability to overcome a unified opposition. Weeks of coalition infighting over tax cuts and the war in Afghanistan have eroded Merkel's political standing, making it harder to promote nuclear power, "the most difficult task she has on her agenda," said Claudia Kemfert, chief energy analyst at the DIW economic institute. "The government has had a very bad start," Kemfert said in a phone interview in Berlin. "People have the feeling that she's not really a leader at the moment, and nuclear is not the best topic for her to win." "